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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| 'A serious deal': Hamas says ready for Gaza truce [suddenly] |
| 2024-12-08 |
| [JPost] They can tell which way the wind is blowing. Following a deal to end more than a year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, attention has swung back to the Gaza Strip, but any hopes of a rapid end to the war there look likely to be dashed. Announcing the Lebanon accord on Tuesday, US President Joe Biden said he would now renew his push for an elusive agreement in Gaza, urging Israel and Hamas to seize the moment. However, there was no sign that Israeli leaders wanted to ease up on Hamas, which triggered the conflagration last year by attacking southern Israel, with ministers making clear their war aims for Gaza were very different than those for Lebanon. “Gaza will never be a threat to the State of Israel again… We will reach a decisive victory there. Lebanon is different,” said Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter, a member of the security cabinet and a former head of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency). “Are we at the beginning of the end [of the Gaza campaign]? Definitely not. We still have a lot to do,” he told a group of foreign correspondents this week. There remain 101 hostages in Gaza, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed both to bring them all home and to eradicate Hamas. MILITARY PRESSURE ON HAMAS Negotiations between the two sides have long stalled, with each side blaming the other for the impasse. Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri on Wednesday accused Israel of being inflexible, saying his group still wanted a deal.“We are committed to cooperating with any effort to reach a ceasefire in Gaza, and we are interested in ending the aggression against our people,” the terrorist group said. “We have informed mediators in Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey that Hamas is ready for a ceasefire agreement and a serious deal to exchange prisoners,” a Hamas official told AFP. Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said on Wednesday the group appreciates Lebanon’s right to reach an agreement that protects its people and it hopes for a deal to end the war in Gaza, adding that he hoped it would pave the way to reaching an agreement that ends the Israel-Hamas War. The Biden administration on Wednesday said it was pushing ahead with a $680 million arms sales package to Israel, according to a US official familiar with the plan. The package, which was first reported by the Financial Times, includes thousands of joint direct attack munition kits and hundreds of small-diameter bombs, according to the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.The ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah came into effect on Wednesday after both sides accepted the agreement brokered by the United States and France, but international efforts to halt the 14-month-old war between Hamas and Israel in Gaza have stalled. Earlier Wednesday, Hamas said it was open to efforts to secure a deal in Gaza, reiterating its outstanding conditions.An agreement must end the war, pull Israeli forces out of Gaza, return displaced Gazans to their homes, and achieve a hostages-for-prisoners swap deal. In an unexpected twist, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that Turkey was ready to help in any way possible to establish a lasting ceasefire in Gaza and expressed satisfaction with the ceasefire agreement that has come into effect in Lebanon. |
| Posted by:Skidmark |
| #3 I am hoping for some Perhaps a nuclear glow. |
| Posted by: Otto Whinemp2009 2024-12-08 12:50 |
| #2 Too late for Hamas. The time for a lasting ceasefire was on Oct 6th 2023. Gaza belong to Israel now and Israel willgavern the area. |
| Posted by: Seeking Cure For Ignorance 2024-12-08 12:06 |
| #1 I am hoping for some sunlight regarding the UN and State Department regarding Gaza. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2024-12-08 10:37 |